Over 2 lakh ration cards cancelled in the last one year during data updation

Officials cite deaths and outmigration as major reasons

Over two lakh ration cards, accounting for approximately 10 lakh beneficiaries of the public distribution system (PDS), have been struck off from official records since the beginning of 2021.

Broadly, there are only two reasons — deaths and outmigration. A majority of the beneficiaries have died with the rest moving out of Tamil Nadu.

In 2021 alone, around 2 lakh cards were cancelled and up to February this year, the number stood at 2,671 cards. The previous high with regard to the cancellation of ration cards was in 2018 when about 1.63 lakh cards were cancelled. At that time, a drive was carried out to identify duplicate cards following the adoption of the system of ‘smart family cards’ in April 2017. Then, end-to-end computerisation and seeding of Aadhaar numbers in PDS beneficiaries’ database were carried out, all of which led to the card cancellation.

This time, as part of the ‘data purity’ project, the authorities have been coordinating closely with those officials who have the data regarding the death of individuals. The Tamil Nadu e-governance Agency (TNeGA) is a key player in the exercise. Efforts are on to link the PDS beneficiaries’ database with live registers of death.

After 2018, for a few years, on an incremental basis, the cancellation took place. It was during 2021, that too later part of the year, that the project picked up momentum and after due verification of the persons who died, the cancellation of cards was effected.

A senior official clarifies that the cards cancelled last year were not necessarily related to those who died in 2021. Only in the last six months or so, the process of data sharing improved tremendously among government departments and agencies.